Need help brainstorming!

I’m a high school student in desperate need of some ideas pertaining to Food & Nutrition. Why? Well I’m currently in advanced science courses and at my school when you take an advanced science course be it physics, chemistry, and/or biology you have to form a group of 3-4 and plan a research project pertaining to a topic idea from the science department. Eventually all the students (groups) go to a lecture hall and present their research, and are evaluated. Anyway, like I mentioned early, this year is Food & Nutrition and though you would think ideas would be in abundance, there definitely not.

My friends and I have had long lunches trying to develop some original ideas to really impress our teachers. Here are some of the ideas we thought of, studying capsaicin, studying new preservation techniques, and developing an efficient way to extract oil from general seeds. So far we really like the capsaicin idea but are having problem finding ways to study it since we are only high school students, therefore I ask for either help on some of already existing ideas or commenting on what you think a good idea would be to study in this topic.

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for. What grade is this for? What is the class?

Okay maybe I was a little vague so let me digress. We are looking for anything pertaining to Food & Nutrition and when I say this, I mean ANYTHING! It just has to be science related. What sciences you ask? Well my group consists of 2 people and myself. One of the persons in my group is just in advanced biology and chemistry, while my other partner is just advanced chemistry; I on the other hand am advanced biology and physics (I know odd mix!). Therefore, my group has to study all three sciences for this project and I already know the section on physics in this project will be very difficult (I was thinking of doing ballistics with bananas and carrots but that didn’t go over to well with my physics teacher… just kidding,) and also we are grade 11 students. Thanks for some ideas!

ek said:

Do you have to perform experiments yourselves?
What about capsaicin did you want to study? Its effects on our nervous systems, it's medicinal uses, etc.?

When we thought of capsaicin we were actually eating lunch and this sparked the idea that maybe capsaicin could be used as a preservative for poultry or meat in general. We did a little research and actually found out that in Latin America they leave chicken out side for days in pots of chilies and tap water, and the chicken surprisingly stays fresh. We also looked at what happens when you eat something containing capsaicin and generally your endorphins become heightened, etc. We have also looked at capsaicin from a medicinal stand point and took a trip to the local pharmacy to see if they had any products that contained capsaicin, and they did. Most of the products were meant for pain relief and this interested us a lot, but we then realized that we would most likely have to use humans to test it on and well, we want something a little more controlled. Anyway, I hope I answered your questions.

Studying how the color of food effects appetite would cover everyone; the physics of sight (dealing mostly with light & color, but you could also venture into the electrical impulses of the nervous system), the physiology of sight (nervous system for chemistry & molec. biology), the evolutionary advantage or disadvantage a certain color brings a food (evo. biology) and so on.

There is also plenty of research concerning these topics so you could go into great detail.

This would also allow you to dip into a fundamental concept of quantum mechanics: wave/particle duality. Since explaining the propagation of light from its source to the eye would be best dealt with treating light as waves, while treating light as particles could better explain the interaction of light with the rods and cones of the retina and the resulting electrical impulses.